Fluid samples are often collected for diagnostics testing including, by way of example, “drugs of abuse” testing, hormone replacement therapy, other diagnostics and clinical testing including HIV screening, environmental sampling, veterinarian sample collection and other similar applications. The substances collected are varied and include, for example, bodily fluids such as saliva, blood, urine, surface moisture from any type of surface including exterior body surfaces, or any other type of fluid that is typically subjected to diagnostics testing.
It is a common practice to use a swab of absorbent material as a collection medium. The swab is often mounted on an end of a collection stick and is supplied in a kit that also contains a container or vial into which the swab and sample are placed for purposes of transportation or analysis. The vial may contain a buffer solution into which the swab with the sample is submerged.
To collect a sample, the swab is brought into contact with the fluid sample to be collected to transfer the sample to the swab. The swab is then placed in the vial and submerged in the buffer solution. There are many variations in the subsequent sample collecting process depending on how the collected sample is to be analyzed. For example, in some applications, the sample is analyzed contemporaneously with it being collected, and that process may be carried out in the vial or a contiguous container. However, in other applications, the vial with the collected sample is sealed and sent to a different location for subsequent analysis.
With known sample collection systems in which a collected sample is to be shipped to a location for analysis, it is known to seal the swab and the collection stick in the vial for transportation to the location of analysis. At the location of analysis, a technician typically uses the collection stick to compress the swab against the bottom of the vial to extract or express the sample from the absorbent swab into the buffer solution. The swab is then removed from the vial and may be discarded. A pipette or other instrument is then introduced into the vial to remove a mixture of the fluid sample and buffer solution from the vial for analysis.
However, it will be appreciated that if the swab is not sufficiently compressed in the vial by the technician to express the sample from the swab, the integrity of the analysis may be compromised. Moreover, requiring the technician performing the analysis to extract the sample from the swab generally increases the cost and complexity of the analysis process and also risks contamination of the sample while the collection stick is being handled.
Therefore, there is a need for a sample collection system that simplifies the extraction of a fluid sample from a collection stick for subsequent analysis of the sample. There is also a need for a sample collection system that assures proper mixing of a fluid sample and buffer solution within a vial for accurate analysis of the sample.